Check out the vid Brad Andrews and his crew at Missouri Baptist put together for the Abandoned 2007 worship conference I'm speaking at later this month. Nice work, Brad!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Abandoned 2007 Just Around the Corner
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2 comments:
I'd love your input on this post!
Mud
Here's what I posted over at Fred's site, Mud.
Thanks to Mud for drawing my attention to this post and for Fred for continuing the thread. I'm the worship pastor at The Journey in St. Louis, so I guess that makes me professional. Here are my basic thoughts to the what I've read so far.
I'm surprised that I haven't really seen any discussion of spiritual gifts in this conversation...perhaps I missed some things in my glancing over some of the other replies, but I think spiritual gifts has to be brought into more prominence in this type of conversation.
Let me clarify: I am not from a charismatic background. I'm a charismatic with a seatbelt, OK, which means I believe we can cause chaos in our worship services by elevating certain gifts over others (1 Corinthians 14), but I don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe in the gifts of the Spirit and I believe that doing church well and "beautifully" means bringing people with whatever spiritual gifts they have together for God's glory.
Though there is some debate on the topic, I don't think there is such a thing as a spiritual gift of musical ability. So which gifts should factor into this discussion, or better said, which gifts should help determine calling and qualification of a worship leader, paid or otherwise?
I think the two biggest are leadership and teaching. The short version of why: We are called primarily not to lead music, but to lead people. So having a dominant leadership gift is not only helpful, but probably essential. Secondly, we are called to teach the gospel, and not just through lyrical content (although you better make sure that is theologically accurate). We are called to lead people through the teaching of the content of the gospel of Jesus. We are called to challenge (leadership) people's bad worship and false gods, and offer them the alternative (teaching) of a solid theology of worship. This, after all, is what it means to be a worship leader.
This is a long post, but a couple more thoughts. Shannon's brief post hit the next point right on the head. The way most services are structured these days, singing and music times make up somewhere between 35 and 50% of our time together. Where that is the case, the person in charge of those decisions and creative choices and leading, better be biblically qualified as a deacon, preferably as an elder, and if not either yet, better be aspiring to these offices and in relationships where the biblical qualifications are being challenged and tested. The burden here is on the pastoral staff of a church.
Finally, I think a worship leader needs to be missional, meaning that they need to understand complex theological thinking and doctrine, but should also be able to communicate it in a way that makes sense to people. Missional is not seeker-sensitive. As Driscoll says, we need to be seeker-sensible, not sensitive. Sensitive implies avoiding hard theology (election, hell, sovereignty, etc.). Sensible just means you teach, through song and other means, but you explain as you go. A worship leader needs to be a student of the culture of the congregation, a student of the immediate surrounding culture, and a student of the broader dominant culture, SO THAT they recognize what tools are at their disposal for the clearest articulation of the gospel of Jesus.
These are my thoughts, sort of on topic, but the things I think about in regards to being qualified as a worship leader. Where the above gifts/issues are being dealt with and thought through regularly, you have an environment that is raising up quality worship leaders, paid or otherwise.
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